At the same time, a dispassionate investigation would prove, I think, to the satisfaction of all unbiassed minds, that the degree in which the Jews have merited the odium of dissent has in every age been strictly proportionate to the magnitude of the odium itself. Even at the present hour it would be found upon enquiry that the Jews retain most of their traditional aloofness and fanaticism--most of what their critics stigmatise as their tribalism--in those countries in which they suffer most severely. Nay, in one and the same country the classes least liable to the contempt, declared or tacit, of their neighbours are the classes least distinguished by bigotry. It is only natural that it should be so. People never cling more fanatically to the ideal than when they are debarred from the real. Christianity spread first among slaves and the outcasts of society, and its final triumph was secured by persecution. We see a vivid illustration of this universal principle in modern Ireland. To what is the enormous influence of the Catholic Church over the minds of the peasantry due, but to the ideal consolations which it has long provided for their material sufferings? Likewise in the Near East. The wealthy Christians, in order to save their lands from confiscation, abjured their religion and embraced the dominant creed of Islam. The poor peasants are ready to lay down their lives for their faith, and believe that whosoever dies in defence of it will rise again to life within forty days. It is easy to deride the excesses of spiritual enthusiasm, to denounce the selfish despotism of its ministers, and to deplore the blind fanaticism of its victims. But fanaticism, after all, is only faith strengthened by adversity and soured by oppression.